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apples

This is my favourite sauce so far. Its very sweet, not savoury which I was expecting, but that probably reflect how sweet and juicy these apples are and the sweetness of the wine.

Although it is a stuffing all the recipes for donuts, cakes and strudels I used it as a pancake topping. I think it is a flexible sauce.

The next dishes are made from apple. Peel the apple, slice it into little pieces, put them into a clean pan, add some wine, then some black pepper and ginger, then cook it. Do what I told you before, you can use this for stuffing cakes or strudels.The Prince of Transylvania’s Court Cookbook (Hungary, 16th c.)

Ingredients

4 cups of apples, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped

2 cups wine

1 tsp Black pepper fresh ground, (or more)

1 slice of dried ginger

Directions

Combine ingredients in sauce pan and bring to boil. Cover and reduce heat and simmer until apples fall apart.

I discussed this redaction with people on the Facebook SCA Cooks group because I think there is a lot of room for interpretation with this recipe:

To make a Tarte of preserued stuffe. You must take halfe a hundreth of Costardes, and pare them, and cut them, and as soone as you haue cut them, put them into a pot, and put in two or three pound of suger, and a pint of water, and a little Rosewater, and stirre, them from the time you put them in, vntill the time you take them out againe, or else you may also put it into a dishe, and when your Tart is made, put it into the Ouen, and when it is caked endore it with butter, and throw suger on the top, & then do on your sauce, & set comfets on the top, and so serue it vp.The Good Housewife’s Jewell (1596)

I was drawn to the recipe because it mentions “preserved stuff” and I had a lot of apples to use up. If you take 50 apples you will make aproximately 12 cups of apples sauce. I felt that this would have preserves as described would be use for more than one recipe, not one really huge tart–however I can see why some people thought that this is a reasonable interpretation.

The “confits” sprinkled on top can be many different kinds of candies, in 1596 they candied a lot of things. I used candied fennel, but candied pepper or almonds would work. I was tempted to use cake sprinkles in heraldic shapes and colours but I refrained. If you do that please post pictures down below.

A car load of of went to a friends farm to pick apples. The apple orchard we descended upon was semi-wild and not sprayed for pests and things. Organic!

When using organic(!) apples you should know several things. The bugs you might find are technically edible. I set the worms and apples free when I found wiggly things. I did cook the apples with bruising from the worms. Any spots and rust on the on the outside can be cut or peeled away. Its also technically edible.

Not worm!

worm!

If you pick up apples off the ground they can be contaminated with ecoli. Cooking apples, or pasteurizing drinks made with apples will kill this and other bacteria.

Chickens humours are of a dry humour and you need to simmer them to add moist to balance them, and

it insures that the chicken is cooked through so it won’t make someone who is cooking without reliable heat, or meat thermometer, ill.

I used chicken legs but this recipe calls for Capon, which is much more expensive.

The apples are cut into quarters, this could mean that you should have chunks of apples when the sauce is done cooking, or that the cook knows they will cook long enough to thicken sauce. Or both!

I think the flavour from the pine nuts helps balance out the sweetness of the other sauce ingredients. If you needed to remove the pine nuts I’d try dried mushrooms or toasted almonds to give a umami, or savoury taste.

One of Jeff”s apples

Step 1

Frying apples and onions together

Bring to boil

Finished product

Hungarian Capon in pottage. Take a slightly cooked capon, cut it into quarters, & fry in butter a little, that it is not at all black: then take onions cut into slices, & apples cut into little quarters, & fry in butter, & cast it on the capon in a pot: then put therein a little broth & wine, & let it boil again, & put herein saffron, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, pine nuts, & make stew well until it is well cooked, & serve. Ouverture de Cuisine
(France, 1604 – Daniel Myers, trans.)

Barberries look like goji berries, they taste like dried cranberries simmered in lemon juice. You can buy them (and verjuice) at specialty groceries, like a Mediterranean Grocery Shop.

I again used my clay cooker to roast my chicken but you can use any roasting pan with a cover. Always cook chicken up to 165 F.

To bake chickins. First season them with cloves & mace, pepper and salt, and put to them currans and Barberies, and slitte an apple and cast synamon and suger upon the apple, and lay it in the bottome, and to it put a dish of butter, and when it is almost enough baked, put a little suger, vergious and orenges. Thomas Dawson, The Second part of the good Hus-wiues Iewell (1597)

When I wasn’t feeling well I started looking up medieval recipes meant to serve to a sick person and this recipe stuck in my brain:

Again, emplumeus of apples: to give understanding to him who will make it, take good barberine apples according to the quantity of it which one wants to make and then pare them well and properly and cut them into fair gold or silver dishes; and let him have a fair, good, and clean earthen pot, and let him put in fair clean water and put to boil over fair and clear coals and put his apples to boil therein. And let him arrange that he has a great quantity of good sweet almonds according to the quantity of apples which he has put to cook, and let him blanch, clean, and wash them very well and put them to be brayed in a mortar which does not smell at all of garlic, and let him bray them very well and moisten them with the broth in which the said apples are cooking; and when the said apples are cooked enough draw them out onto fair and clean boards, and let him strain the almonds with this water and make milk which is good and thick, and put it back to boil on clear and clean coals without smoke, and a very little salt. And while it boils let him chop his said apples very small with a little clean knife and then, being chopped, let him put them into his milk, and put in a great deal of sugar according to the amount that there is of the said emplumeus of apples; and then, when the doctor asks for it, put it in fair bowls or pans of gold or silver. Maistre Chiquart, Du fait de cuisine

I picture Chiquart chiding an apprentice cook, who I have named ‘Bradley’, with the line: which does not smell AT ALL of garlicBradley! Chiquart mentions the mortar smelling of garlic 7 times in 7 different recipes. I really think there was an absent-minded apprentice that made a dessert that tasted or smelled like garlic as some point. The constant vigilance against ‘Bradley’ making this mistake again humanises this manuscript. People will be people throughout the ages.

To clean garlic out of your granite mortar and pestle use soap and water, rinse really well, and dry really well. I’ve never had the mortar or pestle absorb soapy flavours, but I don’t use flower scented dish soap, or marble. If you are worried about that use baking soda as a paste instead, and also rinse really well.

Ingredients:

6 sour apples, cored, and quartered

1 cup blanched almonds

3/4 cup raw cane sugar

Directions

Put apple pieces in sauce pan with enough water to almost cover. Bring pot to boil and then reduce heat to simmer until soft, approximately 15 minutes.

While the apples are simmering, grind up your almonds, a tablespoon at a time, in the mortar using the cooking water of the apples to lubricate your almond mush. Be careful, its hot. Set almond meal/mush into a bowl.

Once apples are softened and breaking apart, strain the apples, adding the cooking liquid to the almond mush.

Whisk the almond mixture gently (it’s still hot) for a few minutes to make a frothy cream.

Strain almond milk through a wire strainer into the saucepan, and heat on medium low until it comes to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to low.

Chop hot apple chunks into smaller apple chunks.

Add apple pieces and sugar into saucepan of hot almond milk. Continue to simmer sauce on low until it thickens, and the sugar is melted, 20-30 minutes. Apples will continue to break apart. (optional: simmer for hours, really breaking the apples down)

Serve warm, or cold, in a silver or gold bowl.

I apologize for how messy this recipe is and how hard it is to clean fresh almond milk off of the counter top.

There was frost on the ground today, I know because my dog tried to eat it.

Some of the medieval fruit we want to use is picked this fruit after the first frost, and then let it further ripen, or rot, called ‘bletting’. Medlars, serviceberries, and quinces are excellent examples of these.

Quinces need to have brown spots on the skins or they will be too hard to eat after simmering them for 4 hours. Its very frustrating.

Medlars, if you are lucky enough to find them, are so rotten they are squish and taste slightly alcoholic.

Serviceberries, also called rowan berries, need to be cooked to get rid of the sorbic acid that makes it inedible raw and unripe.

Once you have over ripe fruit it is perfect for making marmalade.

For ease of understanding the following recipe:
* Damsons, are a type of plum.
* Wardens are a type of pear.
* Checkers and servits are a type of rowan berry.

To Make Marmalade of Service Berries and ApplesTAke damsins which are ripe, boyle them on the fyre with a little fayre water tyll theybee softe, then draw them through a course boulter as ye make a tart set it on the fyreagayne seethe it on height with sufficient suger, as you do your quinces, dash it withsweete water & and box it. If you wil make it of prunes, euen likewise doo put some apples also to it, as you dyd to your quinces. This wise you may make marmylade of wardens, peares, apples, & medlars, servits or checkers, strawberrys every one by him selfe, or els mixt it together, as you thick good. John Partridge, The Treasurie of commodious Conceits (1573)

Ingredients
* 2 cups rowan berries, picked over
* 2 cups apples, cored, and coarsely chopped
* 2.5 cups raw cane sugarDirections
1) Place berries and enough water to cover in a sauce sauce pan, and then simmer on medium-high, until fruit softens, approximately 20 minutes.
2) Strain fruit in fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth. Squish the fruit to get all the juice out. [Modern recipes say not to do this, it will make jelly cloudy.]
3) Mix sugar and juice together in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
4) Pour in a sterilized jar, cover and store in a cool, dry dark place.